Recrushing already crushed grains

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Tomp
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Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by Tomp » Thu Sep 28, 2017 8:31 am

If I crush already crushed grain, will this cause a problem?

Reason I ask is I'm struggling with mash efficiency (about 50% on my GF) and I can only think now, its down to the crush of the malt. Problem is I have about 30Kg and although I think I shall start to crush my own in the future, I don't want to try to mill already crushed grain and turn it to useless flour but nor do I want to discard it as useless.
It started with kits to save money and now look........!!!

Lots of kit, too many ingredients and not enough time, but a patient wife.... who loves my beer...........

Could be worse :-)

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Jocky
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by Jocky » Thu Sep 28, 2017 9:32 am

Nope. It'll only crush it down to the size of the rollers. With a GF you don't really have any issues with stuck mashes so you can crush quite fine.

Take a handful and spread it out on a dark background, take a picture and post it on here and we can say if it's the crush.

Ideally you want all the grains cracked into a few pieces and the husks removed but kept largely intact. Some good example pictures on this page: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=CrushEval
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Tomp
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by Tomp » Thu Sep 28, 2017 9:58 am

Will do.

It’s got to be crush as the pH is spot on, the water is the right temperature but the sparse takes about 2 minutes.


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It started with kits to save money and now look........!!!

Lots of kit, too many ingredients and not enough time, but a patient wife.... who loves my beer...........

Could be worse :-)

Fil
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by Fil » Thu Sep 28, 2017 12:17 pm

it could be the age of the grain or how its been kept??
ist update for months n months..
Fermnting: not a lot..
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Maturing: Challenger smash, and a kit lager
Drinking: dry one minikeg left in the store
Coming Soon Lots planned for the near future nowt for the immediate :(

Tomp
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by Tomp » Thu Sep 28, 2017 12:47 pm

Fil wrote:
Thu Sep 28, 2017 12:17 pm
it could be the age of the grain or how its been kept??
I did consider that, but its fresh from Malt Miller so I consider it to be fresh.
It started with kits to save money and now look........!!!

Lots of kit, too many ingredients and not enough time, but a patient wife.... who loves my beer...........

Could be worse :-)

guypettigrew
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by guypettigrew » Thu Sep 28, 2017 1:47 pm

Tomp wrote:
Thu Sep 28, 2017 9:58 am
Will do.
It’s got to be crush as the pH is spot on, the water is the right temperature but the sparse takes about 2 minutes.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It only takes 2 minutes to complete the sparge? Goodness!

What weight of grain are you using and how do you sparge?

Guy

chefgage
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by chefgage » Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:12 pm

Is that two minutes for each sparge step on the controller or 2 minutes for the whole lot?

When sparging using the grsinfather i find its roughly 2 minutes per litre (I add a litre at a time). The sparge takes awaile but i get very good efficiency and that is using the grain from the malt miller like yourself

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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by Wonkydonkey » Thu Sep 28, 2017 4:01 pm

something wrong with your process or should i say processes, but where is, or are all the bits adding up to make it low

looks like your be walking us throu every step.

but dont worry most peeps have to iron out a few wrinkles here and there.
To Busy To Add,

guypettigrew
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by guypettigrew » Thu Sep 28, 2017 4:04 pm

My sparge rate is about the same as yours, chefgage, perhaps a bit faster. My sparge, using a three vessel system, takes 1-1 1/4 hours to get me about 35 litres in the boiler.

My malt is also ready crushed from The Malt Miller and my efficiency is around 72%. Higher would be good, but a bit of extra grain gets me to my preferred OG of 1.050 or slightly more.

Guy

Tomp
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by Tomp » Thu Sep 28, 2017 7:30 pm

Hmmm...

Sounds like it might be something else then.

Its 2 minutes per jug I guess, but I don't get any water building up in the mash bin above the top plate unlike all the videos shown. I'm used to mashing in an old coolbox and I used to get lovely efficiency with about 1cm of water above the grain bed.

I've checked and double checked everything I can think of. The last brew was as follows:

Nice fresh grain. 4.5Kg of Maris Otter, 1Kg of Chrystal, 0.5Kg of Carafoam.

Stepped mash 10minutes at 50, 45mins at 69, 10 minutes at 75.

Mash volume was 22 litres (this includes 3l for the deadspace). This does seem to give quite a liquid mash but Beer Smith suggests this based on the profile I've been using. Perhaps this is wrong as if I follow the GW rules, it suggests 20 litres is required.

Sparge volume was then 14 litres.

When mashing, I didn't push the plate down firmly on the top to let the grain bed expand. I did push it down firmly for the sparge however.

Jug by jug, I poured it over and each took about 2 minutes I guess but the water just ran straight through.

OG was planned as 1060, and actual was 1052 so Beer Smith reckons this equates to 53% :-(

I either have a problem with the mash liquor quantity (this does seem high) or the crush. Any help greatly appreciated.
It started with kits to save money and now look........!!!

Lots of kit, too many ingredients and not enough time, but a patient wife.... who loves my beer...........

Could be worse :-)

guypettigrew
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by guypettigrew » Thu Sep 28, 2017 9:20 pm

Thanks for the extra info.

With a mash of Maris otter, crystal and carafoam at your quantities I'd have a mash liquor of 15 litres. 2.5 litres of liquor to 1Kg of grain.

The temperature doesn't need to be stepped to get the best from those grains. Aim for a constant mash temperature of 66C/67C. Andy's strike temperature calculator on this site will tell you what temperature your liquor needs to be at before you add the grains. Get the mash to the right temperature then ignore it for 90 minutes. This is the point at which I have breakfast!

My guess is you're stirring the mash each time you raise the temperature. Probably not a good idea! And how do you raise the temperature? Is there a heating element in your mash tun? If so, and if you aren't stirring vigorously enough, this could cause intense hotspots which will destroy the enzymes.

If you drop the mash liquor down to 15 litres and leave it to sit once it's at the right temperature then the enzymes will have a much better chance of working properly.

Also, with a much lower mash liquor volume you can use more sparge liquor to get to your desired volume in your boiler. This will flush out more sugars.

Next, how do you control the run off rate from your mash tun? It doesn't really matter how much you pour in the top. What matters is how fast you let it out of the bottom! If you restrict the outflow then you can pour liquor in the top at a rate to give you as much liquor as you like on top of the grain. I aim for about 2cm to ensure the grain continues to 'float'.

Hope this helps.

Guy

Secla
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by Secla » Thu Sep 28, 2017 11:54 pm

i use malt millers grain and get near 80% effeciency on my grainfather

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IPA
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by IPA » Fri Sep 29, 2017 8:17 am

Strange mash schedule? I am pretty certain that's where the problem is. Why the 50 degree rest with pale malt?. Try a 66 degree mash for 90 minutes and compare. Just because you can step mash doesn't mean you have to in every case.
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PhilB
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Re: Recrushing already crushed grains

Post by PhilB » Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:12 am

Hi Tomp
Tomp wrote:
Thu Sep 28, 2017 7:30 pm
OG was planned as 1060, and actual was 1052 so Beer Smith reckons this equates to 53% :-(
... I apologise if this is "teaching grandmothers to suck eggs" here, but I think it's worth checking that you are comparing like with like there ... you don't mention the volume the recipe was intended to produce and the actual volume you got in your fermenter. You do realise that (as far as we can see) it is possible that you actually achieved a higher efficiency than anticipated by the recipe, but produced a larger volume of a lower gravity wort :? ... Did you measure the actual volume you got in your fermenter? And did you enter that into the BeerSmith efficiency calculator along with the gravity you measured?

Cheers, PhilB

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